Our experiments show that the enzyme function of WWOX is necessary for its role in metabolism, yet the substrate and product of WWOX are yet to be defined.

We hypothesise that the region C-terminal to the canonical SDR enzyme and an internal SDR ‘loop’ – both uniquely conserved among the WWOX ortholog subfamily of SDRs - constitute the enzyme substrate-binding domain and specify the WWOX ligand.

We are testing this hypothesis by mutagenesis and functional assays in Drosophila and the Honours project in 2017 will be part of this approach.